if you fail (try, try again)
by literary deviant
Summary: History repeats - a friend, a comrade, a student. Uchihas have a habit of breaking Kakashi's heart.


**I don't know what this is. Just a study of Kakashi's relationships with Obito/Itachi/Sasuke. It was supposed to be 3k... why does everything I write turn out way longer than I plan?**

* * *

History repeats. It throws its shadow everywhere.

Kakashi's life is a cycle of repeated failures. A list of regrets written in bodies on the ground and blood across the floor. Failure is the framework of Kakashi's existence; a history of doing too little, of being too late. His mistakes breed patterns, echoing through time—a teammate, a kouhai, a student. He gets too close, holds on too tightly. He cares too much, even when he shouldn't.

History always repeats, and history always stays the same. His mistakes become patterns, and those patterns become habit. Impossible to break.

A teammate. A kouhai. A student.

Uchihas have a habit of breaking Kakashi's heart.

* * *

 _ **obito**_

Obito Uchiha is an embarrassment, and Kakashi hates him instantly.

He's loud and clumsy and spineless, a perfect example of what a shinobi _isn't._ Rin, with her medical knowledge, is at least _useful;_ Obito is a hindrance at best. He doesn't understand why Minato-sensei puts up with him, and he doesn't understand why he has to, either. Kakashi is leagues above him—above both of them—and _sensei, don't you think my skills are being wasted on a team like this?_

Minato-sensei doesn't agree, just pats him on the head like he's a dog—or worse, a - child and says, _Lighten up, Kakashi-kun. You have time to improve your skills. Spend some more time with people your age._

Kakashi always responds with the same glare, the same scoff. As far as he's concerned, all the shinobi his age are morons. Rin's alright, if a bit mediocre, but Obito's a level of stupid that Kakashi's never seen. He trips over air, cries at the slightest hint of danger, and he's late even when he's told to come half an hour early. How someone like him comes from such an elite clan, Kakashi could never guess.

Obito is a crybaby. He doesn't have what it takes. He loves too easily and feels too deeply. He allows his emotions to control him; such things are useless to a shinobi.

Kakashi recalls his father; he remembers the hate-filled glares of villagers and the shameful slump to Sakumo's shoulders. He remembers the tanto in his father's stomach and the blood soaking into the carpet.

Emotions can ruin a shinobi's career. Emotions can get them _killed_.

But Obito doesn't care. Obito ignores his orders. Obito abandons the mission. Obito calls him _trash,_ and then he _walks away_.

Obito says the White Fang was a hero. And Kakashi's entire world turns on its axis.

 _In the shinobi world, those who break the rules are regarded as scum. But those who would abandon even one of their friends are worse than scum._

Kakashi isn't sure what it is—isn't sure if it was the words themselves, or the steely look of determination in Obito's eyes as he said them—but something about them resonates with him. The words break through his apathy and slip past his defenses, burying themselves right between his ribs. He can't shake them free, and the feelings they plant fester and grow. He remembers Rin's kind eyes and her gentle hands as she patched him up. He remembers the small smile on Obito's face when he called Kakashi _captain_ , and the fire burning in his eyes as he turned his back on tradition to pave his own path.

Kakashi imagines Rin dying alone because he was too heartless to come to her aid. He imagines Obito being struck down, undertaking a rescue mission they should have been on together.

 _I believe the White Fang was a hero._

He's never been more scared. He's never been more ashamed.

/

In the aftermath, Kakashi sits on the cliff-face and stares up at the sky, allowing his sensei to linger close to him and share in his grief, the same way Jiraiya did in the days following his father's suicide.

Rin stands far below him, staring up at the stars in the night sky as if they will suddenly make the world make sense, if only she stares long enough. The Sharingan sitting heavily in his eye socket cuts through the darkness easily, and Kakashi can see the glint of tears spilling down her cheeks.

Kakashi hasn't cried since he found his father in a pool of his blood on the floor _—a shinobi must never show tears_ —but now he feels the back of his throat burn and his eyes sting. He wants to apologize for every time he called Obito a crybaby, for every time he scorned or belittled or mocked him. His hands are shaking in his lap. He keeps feeling Obito's hands under his arms as he hauled him up and threw him to safety, keeps hearing the sound of the cave crumbling, rocks falling and crashing around them.

 _I'm sorry, Obito,_ he thinks, far too little and far too late. _I was wrong. You would have made a great Hokage._

He wants to be angry at Obito, like he was at Sakumo. He wants to hate him for being as stupid and selfish as to die, wants to hate him for spoiling what should be a hard-won victory, for making Rin cry and putting that haunted look in Minato-sensei's eyes. But hating his father was easy, because death had been the path he chose, the path he _wanted_. It was a decision he made, and the blame laid solely on his shoulders. But the only person responsible for Obito's death is Kakashi. The only person to blame is himself.

"It was my fault," he says, and is surprised by the sound of his own voice. It sounds dead. Empty. "He's dead because of me."

"Kakashi-kun." Minato's voice is strangled, his own pain and grief choking him. Kakashi keeps staring ahead. He can't bear to look at him. "What happened was not your fault. A rock fell in your blind spot. Obito acted to save you, as any teammate would."

Kakashi shakes his head. He stares down at Rin below, not really seeing her. "Not the rock. I was team captain. I'm a jonin. It was my duty to keep both of them safe, and instead—"

His sensei brushes a hand through his hair. Kakashi allows it this time, instead of batting it away as he would have usually.

"I'm your sensei. That makes me responsible for you. If the blame lies with anyone, it is with me."

Kakashi doesn't say anything. He doesn't have the energy to protest. He allows Minato-sensei to pull him to his side, and Kakashi leans his head against his shoulder, the most physical contact he's had in years. He wonders how it's possible to hurt so much for someone he couldn't even stand less than half a day a go; he wonders at how easy it was for his heart to convince him he didn't care.

Obito's eye sits heavy in his face, burning like fire. He resists the urge to reach up and tear it out.

/

Kakashi failed Obito. This is a truth he knows in his bones, in his _soul_ , and no useless platitudes from Rin or Minato-sensei will divest him of this belief. His failure—failure as a shinobi, failure as a teammate, failure as a friend—is what led to Obito's body crushed under a cascade of rock, and Kakashi never lets himself forget this.

 _Those who abandon their friends are trash._

Obito tried to tell him, but Kakashi hadn't listened. He put the mission first, abandoning Rin to the mercy of the enemy. He accused Obito of letting his emotions get to him, but in reality, it was Kakashi's judgment that had been clouded; so terrified of Sakumo's fate becoming his own, that he forgot the most important shinobi rule of all.

 _Teamwork,_ Minato-sensei had told them, but it had fallen on deaf ears.

His father would be ashamed.

 _Protect Rin._

Obito's last request never stops ringing in his ears, and he holds it close to his chest, allows it to become everything he is, everything he _lives for_. He rebuilds the foundations of himself on those words, lets them speak for him in every action he takes, every breath he draws into his lungs. Minato-sensei worries over the drastic one-eighty of his behavior, and Rin quickly grows tired of his overbearing protectiveness, but Kakashi doesn't care. He failed Obito where it mattered most, but he won't fail him in this. Obito's dying plea will be honored; Kakashi will keep his promise.

He'll keep Rin safe whatever the cost, even if it means throwing himself onto the sword.

Except that Rin doesn't want to be protected, and Kakashi doesn't throw himself onto the sword. Rin turns him into one instead.

Lightning Blade punches through her chest, and she chokes on her blood, his name the last word on her lips. His eye burns with something more than just tears, and the Sharingan records the sight in vivid, unforgettable detail, branding it into his brain. He wakes up gasping and screaming, the memory choking him; he washes his hands until they're raw, but the feeling of blood never leaves his skin.

 _I failed. I'm sorry, I failed, I'm sorry._

Sometimes, when he wakes, Minato-sensei is with him, and Kakashi doesn't protest as his sensei pulls him close, tucking his head under his chin. _I failed_ , he thinks, his heart trying to crawl its way out of his throat. _I killed Rin, I couldn't protect her, it's my fault. I'm sorry, Obito, I'm sorry—_

There are tears on Minato-sensei's face, and it's only then that Kakashi realizes he was speaking out loud.

"I _failed him_ ," he gasps, shaking violently in the arms encircling him. "I killed her, I killed _both of them._ "

Obito is dead, and still Kakashi can't stop failing him.

/

( Over fifteen years later, he stands behind an Obito that he barely recognizes, staring helplessly as his friend takes another blow meant for him, dies once again, _for him_ , and all he can do is gape at the air as he watches Obito crumble away.

" _Why_?" he gasps, desperate, uncomprehending. "Why for someone useless like me?"

Obito smiles, at peace, but all Kakashi feels is the heavy weight of self-loathing pressing down on his heart. He's a failure in so many ways, and his failure is what caused Obito's torment, but Obito takes the blow for him again, and Kakashi doesn't understand.

 _I'm not worth this,_ he thinks, as Obito's body falls in ashes at his feet and scatters in the wind. _I was never worth this._ )

* * *

 _ **itachi**_

Not even two years after the war's end, Kakashi joins the ANBU Black Ops. At nearly fourteen, he is the youngest member to join their ranks.

Until Itachi Uchiha.

He's twenty years old when the boy is placed on his squad, and by then he's made a name for himself. _Sharingan no Kakashi. Copy-Ninja Kakashi_. And then there are the more unpleasant ones, the ones that make his heart ache with a grief and guilt that are years old, that make his skin itch with the urge to scrub blood off his hands. _Cold-Blooded Kakashi. Friend-Killer Kakashi. I heard he won't hesitate to kill even a comrade if he was ordered to._

He watches the eleven-year-old child place a mask on his face, and he wonders what the Hokage was thinking. Wonders what could ever justify the decision of placing a boy in a place where he will have to stand behind men, where he will soak his hands in blood and shame, and will hold himself with honor in the shadows, justifying every sordid action as being done for Konoha's sake.

 _What were you thinking?_ he wonders of the Sandaime. _He is a_ child _. What were you_ thinking _?_

But then, hadn't Minato once done the same to him? Had he known, in his efforts to help, the darkness he was condemning his student to?

Itachi Uchiha is nothing like Obito. Obito was the black sheep of the Uchiha Clan, a disappointment amongst the rest of their elite members. He was everything an Uchiha wasn't supposed to be, and it is only now, after his death and status as a fallen war hero, that they speak of him with pride.

Itachi Uchiha represents everything that an Uchiha _is_. Clever, powerful, promising; he's a prodigy in every sense of the term. Academy graduate at seven—only a year older than Kakashi's held record of six—and a chuunin at ten, his skill already surpasses shinobi three times his age. He's brilliant. He's _deadly_. Kakashi watches him slit the throats of fully-grown men, blood splattering the white of his uniform, and he watches him do it without a flicker of an expression crossing his face.

Itachi is nothing like Obito. But it still hurts to look at him sometimes.

Most of their missions are spent in silence; crouching in the branches of trees for hours, choking down soldier pills to keep themselves going. Kakashi tries to stay apathetic toward the young prodigy, treats all their interactions as distant and professional, but Itachi worms his way under his skin anyway, as someone more than just a subordinate, more than just a comrade. Kakashi teaches a boy the art of silent killing, when all he really wants to do is wash the blood from his hands, scrub the darkness from his soul.

But Itachi Uchiha is no stranger to bloodshed. A child of war, his hands were bloodied long before Kakashi took him under his wing.

It concerns him, the apathy Itachi displays in the face of such gruesome atrocities. ANBU is a profession that requires a certain amount of compartmentalization; you grow numb to the horror of your orders, succumb to a certain mindset that is more machine than human. Emotions have no place in ANBU, and if you fail to shut them down, you won't last long within the ranks. You'll break. Kakashi learns this early on, and is quick to shed all signs of autonomy.

But Itachi does this a bit _too_ well, and sometimes, Kakashi can't help but find the kid extremely unnerving. Itachi is a _child_ , prodigy or not, and children should not look like he does—should not be so devoid of emotion, so _blank_. Kakashi has seen the minds of grown men _snap_ , seen them driven to madness by the horror of their own sins, and he watches Itachi and _worries_.

This is no place for a child.

The first time—the only time—Kakashi sees a flicker of emotion from his kouhai, Itachi is staring out through the lens of a scope, surveilling his own clan. They are watching the Uchiha complex with sharp eyes through a large window, a rare mission that requires no bloodshed, and Itachi is still and silent beside him when suddenly his eyes _light up_.

It's such a drastic change, so sudden, and Kakashi blinks his eyes, because looking at it is like staring at the sun. He's staring at something down below, and his face has softened, hard edges and angles fading; a mask has fallen away from his eyes, revealing an expression so genuinely _fond_ that it takes Kakashi's breath away.

Kakashi follows his kouhai's gaze. There is a young child standing in the market talking to one of the stand owners. He can't be more than six years old, with hair a few shades darker than Itachi's, the Uchiha crest embroidered on his back. Itachi smiles at him, and watching it is like watching the sun break over the horizon.

"Little brother?" Kakashi guesses. He can't tear his eyes from Itachi, from the open display of _emotion_ he is showing. "What's his name?"

"Sasuke," Itachi responds. He isn't even trying to hide the affection in his voice, seems unaware he's even expressing it. "He likes to come with our mother when she visits the market."

Kakashi watches him, feeling like he's a witness to something not meant for him, something private. He's never seen such _love_ in someone's eyes—didn't even know it was possible to love someone that much. Is this really the same boy?

"You must care for him very much," says Kakashi.

Itachi looks at him, dark eyes fierce. "He means everything to me."

/

Itachi asks about his Sharingan, and Kakashi should have known then that something was wrong. Itachi isn't one to indulge in idle curiosities. Every question he asks has a motive, a _purpose_.

"You said that a friend gave you that Sharingan."

They sit with their backs against the trunk of a tree. Kakashi watches his young teammate carefully, taking note of the tense posture of his body, of the way he deliberately turns himself so he's facing the opposite direction.

"Yes," he confirms, and his heart aches with the feeling of old grief. "Along with a wish."

"A wish?"

"To not get a friend killed," Kakashi says, and is relieved when his voice doesn't catch on the words. He remembers the feeling of his hand scraping against the broken edges of Rin's ribs, of the beat of her heart against his fingers, and forces away the feeling of blood on his hands to focus on the present.

"Do you intend to honor that wish?" Itachi asks, and his voice is inflectionless—so much that it can't be anything but intentional.

"I do," Kakashi replies, and he means it. He failed Obito when he killed Rin, but his words have been engraved onto Kakashi's soul. He won't ever abandon a comrade for a mission again. Won't ever be the _Friend-Killer_ they accuse him of being.

Itachi is silent for a long time—contemplative. There's a weight hanging over his shoulders that he's struggling to hold, and despite his attempts to hide it, his eyes are visibly troubled.

"I know of the incident with Shisui Uchiha," says Kakashi, and Itachi jerks violently next to him. _Bingo_. "Is it about that?"

Kakashi can imagine how the boy is feeling. Suicide is a cruel thing, and Kakashi knows too well the conflict such an act by a loved one can create. But Kakashi's never been good at speaking of Sakumo, and Itachi's never been good at speaking _at all_ , so Kakashi leaves his understanding unspoken. The silence hangs between them like a funeral shroud.

"I am fine, senpai," Itachi lies, and it's the first time Kakashi's been able to see through him.

"If you ever need someone to talk to," Kakashi offers, "I am here."

He knows he'll never take him up on it, but he lets the subject drop. He lets it drop when he should have pushed it, and he lets Danzo promote Itachi to captain when he should have fought against it, should have kept him close.

They promote a thirteen-year-old boy to lead his own squad of killers, and Itachi holds out his hand and says, "Thank you, Kakashi-senpai. It's been an honor to fight with you."

He walks away, and Kakashi should run forward, should look him in the eyes and tell him, _This isn't goodbye. I'm here for you. You're not alone._

He doesn't. He watches as Itachi turns his back, and he lets the boy slip through his fingers.

He watches Itachi smile as if his world isn't breaking around him, never once suspecting it's the beginning of the end.

/

When they tell him it was Itachi, his mind just _stops._

Blood is everywhere he looks, bodies laying mangled in the streets. The scent of copper in the air is overwhelming, and he has to swallow down the bile that rises in his throat. A few other members of the ANBU squad actually have to remove their masks to bend over and vomit.

He walks on autopilot to check the bodies. Their skin is cold and frozen when he brushes his fingers against it to check for a pulse. Dead eyes stare up at him, a face frozen in terror, a throat slashed open brutally. Kakashi closes his eyes as nausea rolls through him; the Commander's words echo in the emptiness that his mind has fallen into.

 _Itachi Uchiha has slaughtered his clan._

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make _sense._ But at the same time, it _does_ make sense, and it's horrifying. Kakashi has seen ANBU members snap, seen them driven insane. And Itachi—a _child_ —

Kakashi falls to his knees in the street, blood soaking into his pants. How could he have been so blind? How could he not have _seen_?

"I've got a pulse!" someone yells.

An ANBU is hovering over a small form, and Kakashi whips his head up and _stares_. Itachi's little brother is unconscious on the ground, covered in the blood of his clan. He's small, and broken, and fragile, and Kakashi tries to move over to him but his body is frozen. The ANBU standing over him pulls him into her arms, cradling him to her chest.

"Get him to the hospital _now_ ," he manages to choke out, and his voice is raw-sounding.

He remembers Itachi looking down at his brother with a smile on his face and love in his eyes, remembers his voice as he declared, _He means everything to me._

Kakashi shoves himself off the ground, blood staining his fingers. His own emotion chokes him, and he shoves it down, hallows himself out. He makes himself stone as he continues forward, taking in the massacre with shuttered eyes, blocking the sickening scent of blood from his nose. _Your job. Do your job._

He looks forward and pretends he can't hear the blood squelching beneath his boots. He looks forward and pretends his insides aren't screaming.

He looks forward and pretends his heart isn't breaking.

 _Oh Itachi_ , he thinks. _What have you done?_

/

( Eight years later, searching for a different Uchiha, Kakashi stands frozen as he hears the words, _Itachi Uchiha is dead._

And Kakashi hates Itachi. Hates him for what he did to his student, for what he forced Sasuke to become. But—

But Kakashi remembers a boy. A boy who loved his brother more than anything. A boy who rarely smiled, but when he did it was like the sun coming out.

Itachi Uchiha is dead, and despite his hatred, Kakashi feels a heavy weight settle between his ribs.

It almost feels like grief. )

* * *

 _ **sasuke**_

Sasuke Uchiha is a mistake he's already made, and he knows better than to make it a third time.

Kakashi doesn't know how to teach. The Sandaime hands him a brilliant konoichi and two traumatized boys, and Kakashi is suddenly responsible for three lives that aren't his own, two of which are already full of cracks.

Kakashi can't even take care of himself, how the hell is he supposed to hold anyone else together?

Naruto is every inch of his parents. He sees Minato-sensei in his eyes and Kushina in his smile, and when he opens his mouth and declares _I'll be Hokage!_ , he sees Obito in his words.

Sasuke is nothing like Obito, but he carries his brother in every line of his face. The shadow of Itachi hangs over him like a shroud. Kakashi remembers the happy boy Itachi once smiled down at, but there is nothing of him to be found now. This Sasuke is calm and cold and _focused_ , and anger boils hotly just beneath his skin.

This Sasuke declares vengeance on his brother, and Kakashi realizes then just how much Itachi _broke_ him.

And he really should know better by now than to get attached to an Uchiha. He's seen the end of this story twice now, and failure always prevails.

But he stares at his student and all he can see is the reflection of his own failures staring back at him. He failed Itachi, let him descend into madness without even trying to offer a hand, and the result of that failure now sits before him.

He stares at Sasuke, and thinks that maybe this is his chance to _make it right._

Kakashi doesn't know how to help a twelve-year-old heal, doesn't know how to be a guiding hand like his sensei was for him. All he knows is that somewhere along the line Sasuke goes from being a kid to suddenly being _his_ kid, and the naked pain in his eyes makes something in him _ache._

Kakashi doesn't know what he's doing, but he _tries_. God, does he _try_.

He finds Sasuke standing in front of his old compound one day, about four months into their time together. He stares up at the faded clan symbol on the wall, and a combination of grief and rage makes his shoulders shake.

It's been exactly five years since the massacre.

"I hate him," he whispers, and his voice breaks over the words. "I hate him _so much_."

"I know," says Kakashi. He doesn't move toward him, doesn't want to cross any boundaries.

"He killed our parents. Our clan. He's a _monster_. I hate him more than I've ever hated _anyone_." Sasuke squeezes his eyes closed, his hands fists at his sides. He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood. "So why… why do I still _miss him_?"

Sasuke falls to his knees in the dirt, and that's when Kakashi finally moves. He's not a tactile person, and neither is Sasuke, but he pulls his student in so his head is leaning against his chest, and Sasuke doesn't protest. His body is wracked with tremors.

Oddly enough, this is the moment Kakashi decides that maybe he can actually do this. He failed Itachi, but that doesn't mean he has to fail Sasuke. His student can still heal. Maybe, just maybe, Kakashi can fix what Itachi broke—what _he_ broke.

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time he'll get it right.

Maybe Sasuke Uchiha won't break his heart.

/

Problem is, some people don't want to be saved. Some people have lived with their pain for so long, they don't know how to live without it.

Itachi was like that, too. Unlike Sasuke, his pain was never on display, was never visible in every movement of his body, but it was still there, just beneath the skin. Itachi hid his pain behind heavy glass windows and never let anyone near enough to peer inside.

But if Itachi built his wall from a solid pane of glass, then Sasuke built his own from the broken pieces he left behind. The kid is like an exposed nerve. Like shards of glass, both broken and deadly, he fashions his skin from sharp, painful edges that cut anyone who gets too close.

Kakashi gets too close. Hs tries not to, to learn from his mistakes, but Sasuke is an echo of a past he can't shake.

But where Itachi locked his pain up, Sasuke chooses instead to _use_ it. He takes all the loss and betrayal and hurt, and he turns it into _anger_ , wraps it around himself and lashes out, wields it like a weapon. He lets the anger fuel him, push him to be stronger, to be _better._

But that's the problem with letting your anger carry you—it'll burn out, eventually. All that's left then is to crash.

It's too late to stop it. All Kakashi can do is prepare for impact.

 _/_

The crash comes, as he knew it would, on a hospital rooftop, two of his students wielding fatal blows and the other one caught in the crossfire.

"Were you really going to kill him, Sasuke?" he asks, his voice turning icy as he stares down at his student.

Sasuke throws him a look filled with frustrated rage. He's unrecognizable from the boy who once fooled around with his teammates in an attempt to see behind his mask.

Itachi is to blame for this, Kakashi knows. It's always Itachi.

He puts his hands on Sakura's shoulders, plasters on a smile, and lies straight to her face. He tells her everything will soon return to normal, and he knows even as he says it that he's messing up.

His team is falling apart. He's a failure as a teacher.

He ties his own student up, restrains him just to make him _listen_ , and Sasuke retaliates with words sharp as knives. But Kakashi sees what hides behind the anger, the conflict warring in those dark eyes, so he brushes them aside and pretends that they don't cut.

"You and I aren't the lucky ones, it's true. But we aren't the worst, either. You and I still have precious comrades that we can rely on."

Kakashi watches the war wage behind the boy's eyes. That is one way in which he and Itachi have always differed; Itachi's eyes were always like stone, completely unreadable, but Sasuke's eyes have always been emotive, the pain and hatred and loss crystal clear to see.

Sasuke built himself from the pieces his brother broke, turned his own soul into something fractured and deadly and _dark_ , and Kakashi yearns to pick up those scattered pieces and put them back together, to take them and teach him that there's another way, how Obito showed him.

He wants to, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't know how to fix things, only how to break them.

 _Let it go,_ he tells his student, begs him to listen. Prays that it's enough. _Give it up. You'll tear yourself apart._

But Sasuke's fissures run too deep to patch up, and they splinter him right down the middle. Darkness swallows him up.

He walks away, and all Kakashi can see is the clan symbol on his back, overlaid with the image of Obito and Itachi as they did the same, as they left him behind.

Kakashi's words aren't enough. _He's_ not enough.

 _What are we, after all, but the sum of our mistakes?_

Sasuke abandons Konoha for power, consumed by his demons, and Kakashi watches as he follows in his brother's footsteps.

He fails. Again. He should be used to it by now.

He isn't.

/

Years pass, and war is waged. Sasuke kills his brother and spirals so far into the darkness, he loses all grip on himself. Kakashi finds Obito in a hell, and helps to pull him out only to lose him again.

His student is dragged home in chains, with blood on his hands and shame in his heart. Kakashi stares at him through the bars of his cell, and he wants so badly to _hope_ , but his heart won't let him. Trust has been broken. It's in pieces on the ground.

He looks at the fragile expression on Sasuke's face, and he wants to yank the cage open and pull his student into his arms; he wants to wash the blood from his hands and the darkness from his soul, like he once wanted for Itachi.

Instead, he curls his hands into fists at his sides, and meets Sasuke's eyes with a cold glare of disappointment.

"If I had known the deeds you would come to commit, I never would have taught you that jutsu."

His voice is hard. Sasuke lowers his eyes and doesn't speak.

"I can barely see it now," he says, sweeping his eyes over him, lingering on the cuffs around his wrists and the seals scrawled across his eyes. "That person with goodness in his heart and determination in his eyes that made me actually give a damn."

Sasuke flinches. Kakashi wonders what he's remembering. The knife aimed at Sakura's throat? The hole punched through Naruto's chest?

Itachi's sightless eyes, staring up at the sky?

Kakashi waits, but there is only silence. He shakes his head with a heavy sigh.

"You broke my heart, kid," he says.

"I know," Sasuke whispers. His voice is scratchy and fragile. "I know."

"This type of thing doesn't just get undone, you know."

Sasuke's fingers tremble against his knees. "I was wrong. I know that. I know that's not worth anything—"

"You're right," Kakashi snaps, thinks of all the bodies Sasuke left in the wake of his rage. "It isn't. You can't just _say_ you're going to change. You have to _show_ it. You want forgiveness, you'll have to earn it."

Sasuke lifts his head to meet his eyes. His gaze doesn't waver.

"I will. I promise."

Kakashi shouldn't believe him, shouldn't trust him.

But god, he _wants_ to.

And maybe it's another mistake. Maybe he's a fool. But Sasuke stares at him with determination set in every line of his face, and Kakashi—

God help him, Kakashi lets himself believe.

/

( Sasuke turns back to look at him in the doorway of the office, his hair obscuring one of his eyes, and his lips pull up slightly at the corners.

"We've come a long way, haven't we?"

And Kakashi looks up at him from the Hokage's chair, pride thrumming through him and warming his heart. He smiles with both his eyes.

"Yeah. We really have." )

* * *

 **Review please :)**


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